Maternal Fever Associated With Continuous Spinal Versus Epidural Labor Analgesia: A Single-Center Retrospective Study

Abstract

(Anesth Analg. 2022;135:1153–1158) Neuraxial labor analgesia commonly results in maternal fevers, though the cause is unknown. Possible causes include infection, inflammation, and altered thermoregulation. An alternative pain management to epidural labor is continuous spinal analgesia, which has lower neuraxial and systemic bupivacaine levels and may decrease the rate of maternal fever. No studies to date have compared maternal fever rates between epidural labor and continuous spinal analgesia. The aim of this study is to compare 2 techniques and better understand the mechanism that drives maternal fevers in association with epidural labor analgesia.